


His Hour Upon the Stage

by brutti_ma_buoni



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 16:52:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13104465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/pseuds/brutti_ma_buoni
Summary: London's cultural scene is an endless whirl. Harriet finds it unexpectedly revealing.





	His Hour Upon the Stage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nomeancity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomeancity/gifts).



> Set presumably 1934-5, distinctly pre-Gaudy Night but once they have known one another a while.
> 
> The theatre event is influenced by the foundation of the Unity Theatre, but that didn’t fit the timeline and couldn’t be directly mentioned.

Into the life of the man about town fall a number of pleasures, and many more duties. Wimsey, a naturally solitary soul - who nonetheless enjoyed the give and take of social gatherings, so long as he might retire to 110A Piccadilly and a quiet period of reflection before bed – found nothing so strenuous as the attending of endless First Nights, and Premieres, and Launches. And yet, such was his acquaintance in cultural circles and his desire to be of support to friends, it was a rare month – a rare fortnight – that did not see Wimsey essaying forth in white tie, grimly set on extracting what pleasure might be extracted from another great society occasion. 

This, Harriet learned, because it became surprisingly speedily a part of her new life, in the days after the trial. Wimsey would suggest an amusing diversion, or more commonly beseech her company for an intolerable imposition upon her time. And thus it was that the Notorious Harriet Vane experienced for the first time in her life the height of London society. She saw Ussipova’s Mimi; Goultard’s Dane; Wingard’s Coppélia. She was present on the night that the stagehands struck in the interval of The Beggar’s Opera, and the Upper Circle mutinied. She mingled, and sparkled, and met the crème de la crème of London society. It was marvellous.

Wimsey was right. It was also dreadfully tedious. Harriet tried to imagine going through the endless chatter, social falsity and aching period of waiting, alone. She felt increasingly charitable towards Lord Peter as the years rolled on. She was, truly, offering him a boon, and it was perhaps the only way that Harriet would have found acceptable to repay the unrepayable debt of life, freedom and reputation which she owed him. 

Reputation was a relative thing, of course. Such high society mingling brought with it costs, which Robert Templeton was not entirely able to defray, even with the Vane notoriety to boost his sales. Wimsey wasn’t foolish enough to offer to help, so Harriet wore her two good dresses turn about, and suffered the curled lips and tilted noses of her fellow women accordingly. Those who did not shun her for her public immorality instead turned chilly shoulders at the dreadful woman who was leading poor Peter such an endless, ungrateful dance. It was the unfriendliest of milieux, even while the highest art unfurled for Harriet's pleasure, month in, month out. She told herself that this made the repayment pass more quickly, for the additional penance incurred. Although more honestly, one might say that she had stopped thinking of this as repayment of the impossible to repay. And it would hurt Peter too much if ever he discovered she had thought of their evenings together this way. 

All of which meant that when fortune offered Miss Vane an opportunity to repay Lord Peter in his own dreadful coin, she grasped it most warmly. 

Wimsey, in turn, could hardly refuse. “A new theatre, what?” he said, gamely enough. “Red Roger has his home at last. Bravo the proletariat. Hearty congratulations.”

“So you will come with me to the first night?” asked Harriet, only a trifle maliciously. She felt that friendly company on this occasion would be more than welcome. The Notorious Harriet Vane might have useful press connections, but she scarcely fitted with the radical scene these days. Had Eiluned Price been less closely enmeshed in the Fraternity Theatre’s workings, she might have refused the invitation, but those friends from her Boyes era who had not failed her since were very dear to her. And so, to Clerkenwell. 

And not alone. Wimsey, recognising perhaps a little of what his persistent pursuit through the hautest of ton had cost Harriet in pride and mental fortitude, never for a moment considered refusing the unwelcome invitation. He did, urgently, attempt to recruit supporters. But the Arbuthnots did not travel north of Tavistock Square, and Chief Inspector Parker expressed the earnest sorrow that Scotland Yard would be unwelcome in such a place, at such a time. (Lady Mary Parker, unconsulted until the refusal had passed the point of conceivable withdrawal, was furious. “His Harriet, on her own turf, with him in attendance? You idiot, Charles, I should have loved to see it. And I shall go to the Fraternity just as soon as I’m able, Scotland Yard connections or no.” Lady Mary’s radical sympathies had been tempered only mildly by the cares of household management.)

At the Café Royale for a spirit-stiffening drink before the taxi, spirit unbowed but second thoughts galloping, Harriet asked Wimsey whether, honestly, their evening in Clerkenwell was not best abandoned.

“Nonsense,” he said, swiftly enough to be honest. “Miss Price awaits, and one can’t let her down, can one?”

“But will you hate it?”

“No more than half the plays I’ve seen this year, dear one. Perhaps less, if the vigour of belief be translated into vigour of playing. And it’s good for one to step outside one’s narrow confines, ain’t it?” 

Harriet contemplated the vivid gold of her fortifying liquor. “As though a little detective hobby didn’t do that for you whenever you choose. But I hope this won’t be a dreadful trial.”

“No, no, no,” said he, airily. “One struggles to know where to put one’s face when being denounced as firing-squad-worthy by the revolutionary vanguard, but it’s a fair criticism of said face, after all. And it's not as if one would be greatly missed, come the revolution.”

She perceived a break in his façade, and pursued. “Do you believe it? The son of the fifteenth Duke, doesn’t it give you a sense of eternal strength?”

“Does it give that impression to you? You, who are self-made, and the child of a man who ceaselessly healed his fellow-man like a true friend of humanity?” His hands turned nervously on the stem of his glass, fidgety and revealing. “We’re relics, Harriet. Relics who possess infinite duty, yet somehow lack all useful function. How Gerald stands it-“ 

His fingers tightened, till she feared for the stem, and he bit his tongue, with visible effort.

It was a true, revealed weakness in the social shell of Lord Peter Wimsey, she observed. He had probably said these very words to others, with a careless laugh, a flippant shrug. The raw truth of his disenchantment was hers alone. 

“You’re surely not without purpose,” she offered, cautiously. No one knew better than she that he saved lives, and protected the innocent, however much he might play the dilettante. 

Eyes met eyes, fingers relaxed, and Harriet knew she had lost her moment, that too much of that old debt had shown in her face. “Selfish amusements only, my dear,” he said, lightly. “One does what one may to pass the time.” 

At the Fraternity Theatre, he was all frivolity and smiles with the crowd, then appropriately attentive as the great work unfolded. Harriet, once she had appropriately gauged Eiluned’s designs for future friendly critique, spent her time watching Wimsey rather more than the work on stage, which was precisely as she had expected it would be. His façade was in place, she thought, impeccably. There was sympathy for the misfortunate, and sympathetic interest in the utopian solutions proposed, whereby the intellectuals would lead a new, better world, in which no one appeared to be required to pull turnips or heft coal, and shops bulged with butter for the poorest. The eyes focused, the mouth grimaced and smiled. But the hands were quiet in his lap, and those hands were, she increasingly thought, a means of understanding the inner workings of the mind. Peter was not engaged in this. 

Harriet considered – as the revolutionary triumph unfolded, unheeded, on the stage – that there was much interest in seeking that which would engage this man. Five years, and she herself did so still. It was not a negligible observation.


End file.
